How Trade Unions Destroyed General Motors and Argentina – April 26, 2020,
For myself, I’m grateful for Karl Marx, because, via his Communist Manifesto, it’s easier for me to compartmentalize all the derivatives of Marxism. Socialism, Communism Fascism all are derivatives of Marx. Socialism has derivatives of its own, the most successful form of Socialism to date has been the market-based socialism models.
Market-Based Socialism and the problem Labor Unions create
The moment any government decides to inject any form of socialism into their economy, understand that they’re in fact borrowing from Karl Marx. The main problem with Communism is that in its entirety it’s anti-market, meaning, that it takes power from the consumer of a made or finished product or service and handing that power to the workers or the producers of the products and services.
Capitalism revolves around pleasing the customer, Marxism revolves around pleasing the worker. A reminder about Karl Marx, that he didn’t appear to be a person who visualized a huge WELFARE state. Marx was pure in that he wanted to help the workers, the bastardization of Karl Marx is both Socialism and Fascism both of which make the entitled classes the none non-labor classes.
Labor/Trade Unions are glorified LAWYERS
The heads of most labor unions usually aren’t laborers, even if they worked as laborers in the past, while working as the heads of labor unions, these trade union presidents are usually the recipient of union dues, making matters worse as trade union president get more powerful, they’re often informed about political things long before the people they represent learn about them. Why is this important you ask? Because people usually only need lawyers when they get into trouble!
Imagine being obligated to pay your lawyer every single paycheck, whether he/she did something for you or not? Imagine if your lawyer lost case after case after case and still demanded that you pay your lawyer fees? Would you do it? You might say no, but if you had a silver-tongued lawyer I can guarantee that most of you would.
I dated a lawyer once, and one thing she reminded me was that she has to sell herself and sell her services to her clients. When it comes to most unions, what most people who pay unions dues don’t understand is that the union uses sales tactics to make you think that you need them!
As an example in the modern era, especially with the internet imagine an employer exploiting its employees without media backlash and without the government changing the laws. Most of the laws passed by most civilized governments are way better than any trade union could ever imagine, but you see, the trade union, just like a great salesman or saleswoman would have you believe that you need them!
You’d be an idiot to save Argentine Pesos, I’m a Canadian currently 2 cents Canadian will buy me $1 Argentine Peso, talk about pennies on the dollar! Canada has a labor union problem, but we haven’t gone as far as the Argentines have gone, not yet anyway.
In a market based socialist economy, the government has decide what will be nationalized or protected and what won’t, now, once the government makes the decision to nationality or protect something, it’s common sense that a labor union would form under that Government protected industry. If there’s any perception that industry will have no competition, only the government can stop that protected institution from charging astronomically high prices.
How Labor Unions Destroyed General Motors
A union’s job similar to a lawyer’s jobs is to look out for the best interests of its client. The more money the client makes, the more money the lawyer/labour union bosses will make, but you see there’s a problem with this type of thinking in a market economy.
At GM as an example, a lot of people think that GM one day decided to make an inferior product, but no, that’s not hat happen, what happened was GM’s labor unions got more powerful and more influential in GM and as these Unions got more powerful in GM they began to find more ways to make the COSTS to operate GM more expensive.
Now, if GM wasn’t a private company, GM similar to the Argentine government could have printed money, but because G had to operate within the confines of the Free market, GM had to make cuts, had to outsource, had to find cheaper ways of doing things.
In my opinion, I’m shocked that GM hasn’t gone fully bankrupt yet, I personally think they should be commended for their ability to survive through labor unions. America has some of the best regulations in the world, is there ever a time when workers don’t need a labor union? If you say NO, well then you should know the reason why Toyota is still successful is that they didn’t have to worry about labor unions! It’s not that the Japanese make a better car than Americans, it’s that Japanese manufacturers never had to worry about labor unions at least to the degree the U.S automakers did.
Argentina is what GM would be if a Labor Unionized GM could print its own money!
Once a government decides to embrace socialism, then this government has now got to run the country like a business. In a business, profits mean NOTHING, Cashflow is king when you’re running a business. When you’re running a publically run business, investors don’t care how much money you made, investors want to know how much did it cost you to make that money.
For example, if I look at Argentina as an investment, I ask myself how much did it cost the Argentine government to make $100 Argentine Pesos, if the answer is $900 pesos, I’m not going to invest in Argentina. If it took the Argentine government $900 to make $100 then the Argentine government ins $800 in debt.
When I look at their political landscape as an investor I ask myself, what is the mood of the people, if in almost every sector of the Argentine economy I see a labor union and an overly paid workforce, based on what most investors know about labor unions investing in Argentina would be like investing in GM except a lot worse because an entitled workforce or an entitled group of people are usually in opposition to a free market economy.
People who are anti-capitalism, do not imagine themselves as greedy, Leftists often don’t see themselves as the problem they usually see other people as their problem. Leftists also to be fair usually don’t understand Austrian economics. So, if an ideology doesn’t conform to their Leftist ideology, they’ll usually stage an ECONOMIC protest, which is like shooting themselves in the foot.
Being that Argentina already has a big government, from an investor’s point of view they’re an intimidating force to behold. The movie Starship Troopers was based in Argentina and that movie was blatant fascism when I see the Argentine economy that’s what I see, Fascism, which is why I think the Nazis felt comfortable fleeing there.
Although the argument will be made that immigrants created the Argentine problem, it doesn’t really matter, the reality is that they’ve created a Labour union nightmare for themselves, and dropping any Leftist ideals for a free market economy is hard for most people to accept.
What do you mean I have to work for a market wage? or a market-based commission? What do you mean the government can’t stop what I think is exploitation? Once people are infected with any derivative of the Marxism virus, good luck getting them to change. Neo-Nazis still exist, Marxists still exist, Keynesians still exist all manners of socialists still exist.
The worst thing that’s happened to Marxists is technology and innovation which is making socialism irrelevant, without the government UBER kills taxi cab monopolies worldwide! I’ve said it before Labor/Trade unions are now part of the Globalist agenda, a lot of lawyers and brokers have a lot to lose if the government doesn’t protect them from extinction!
Even Communist-style central banking is now being challenged by Bitcoin! Some of us see economic things clearly while others believe what they want to believe. When the brownshirts start marching through your streets I hope you can recognize them by the words they use and the economic promises they make!
Interesting times ahead